Our current Potpourri contains nuggets on use of robotic surgery for prostate cancer, the effect of mandated rebates in Medicare Part D on patient costs, FDA guidance on device modifications,…
Read More
Each year CMS issues proposed, and ultimately final, rules relating to reimbursement for various categories of providers in the next year. The 2012 rules have a wealth of background and…
Read More
A lot of the work on geographic variation in spending has been done on the Medicare population. New research published in Health Affairs examines variation in Medicaid spending for the…
Read More
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine examines early results from the Massachusetts Blue Cross plan's global budgeting program, finding very modest health spending reductions and small changes…
Read More
The National Venture Capital Association released statistics regarding second quarter of 2011 venture capital activity. While some aspects of exits, fund-raising and investing have improved from the depth of the…
Read More
The dog days of summer bring yet another scorching hot Potpourri with a smorgasbord of data, including metabias in randomized clinical trials, the practice of defensive medicine, the status of…
Read More
The FDA released a draft guidance on how it will regulate mobile and wireless healthcare devices and applications, which to a large extent follows proposed guidance from the mHealth Regulatory…
Read More
An AHRQ Statistical Brief looks at the most costly health conditions for 2008. They are about what you would expect, with heart disease and cancer leading the way. Women and…
Read More
A recent report from the NIHCM details national spending, showing that a few patients account for a lot of costs and that hospitals are the largest source of spending growth.…
Read More
AHRQ releases a Statistical Brief on Hospital-Acquired Conditions, which are a focus of quality improvement, including unreimbursed never events. The Brief details types of conditions across several payers, including Medicare.
Read More
A mid-summer's evening (or weekend) Potpourri, but no heated discussion here, just soothing nuggets of knowledge, including use and misuse of PCI, how to measure blood pressure, CMS and telemedicine,…
Read More
Our final drug report post discusses releases from Express Scripts, the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute and ESI's PMSI division, which focuses on workers' compensation pharmacy. Express Scripts emphasizes behavioral aspects…
Read More
Today's drug trend reports come from Medco and CVS Caremark, two of the largest pharmacy benefit managers. Both experienced relatively low overall trends and both anticipate specialty drug management being…
Read More
Our next set of drug reports deals with specialty drugs, the most expensive and fastest growing category, and one which has bedeviled payers but many of the drugs are covered…
Read More
The first analysis of a weeklong series on recent reports related to aspects of the pharmaceutical industry covers IMS' report giving projections on aspects of global drug use and spending…
Read More
About this Blog
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.